Adventure Regulations: I’m not captured – am I?

26 Aug 2014

When is adventure not 'adventure' - do you know? How about the criteria that turns a regular tourism activity into an 'adventure activity' - are you across this?

I'm not captured - am I?

All operators that offer 'adventure' activities, even if it is only one part of a wider business operation, are affected. Surprising as it sounds, there are some operators out there who might not realise they are captured under the new Health and Safety in Employment (Adventure Activities) Regulations 2011which will be enforced from 1 November.

Examples include an accommodation provider who offers guided kayaking, or a dive operator who thinks they have their health and safety requirements covered already by Maritime legislation, when in fact they haven't.

How can I find out?

Tourism New Zealand, TIA and WorkSafe NZ have worked together to develop a guide to the criteria, which is designed to help support your understanding of who is definitely in, definitely out and the grey areas. It also offers some advice on what to do next!

If you are still not sure if you are captured, you can email aao@worksafe.govt.nz

On 1 November, any tourism operator that runs an 'adventure activity' must be registered with Worksafe New Zealand in order to continue operating legally.

With this deadline looming, Tourism New Zealand is urging all operators to get their business in order.

Those who have already booked in for an audit need to keep things moving by sending in their paperwork now. Don't wait until you think it is 100% perfect! Time is running out for the auditors to get through everyone who has booked an audit, some of whom haven't sent in their paperwork, not to mention those who haven't even booked yet.

TIA is running a series of workshops to help adventure operators prepare for an audit so send your paperwork off to the auditor then head along to one of these workshops.

Deadline 1 November 2014

After this date, if your operation is subject to the regulations but you're not registered and continue to provide adventure activities, you will be in breach of the law - it's that simple.

Tourism New Zealand is 100 per cent committed to ensuring the safety of visitors to New Zealand.

Our stand on this is pretty simple. Come 1 November, if your operation is subject to the regulations, you must be registered to be included in Tourism New Zealand activity.

Our famil itineraries will only include adventure activities operators who have been registered. All the imagery and footage in our online libraries will be reviewed to check that only operators who have met their legal obligations appear.

We will also be checking the registration status of any adventure operator that appears on newzealand.com. If you are not registered, but should be, you won't feature on our website.

If this is you, then you need to act now. There are many operators all aiming for the same deadline and if you don't keep things moving, you run the real risk of missing out.